City of Magpies
by Foxtoast
Summary: Will writes a letter to Lyra during his fifth visit to the Oxford Botanical Garden.


Author's note: I am in no way responsible for the genius of His Dark Materials. Had I written the books, they wouldn't have been even a shadow of what they are. Pullman's philosophies are, more or less, my own, and I am very pleased to see a well-written series drawn from a well of skepticism and humanism. This ficlette has little to do with either, and will hopefully become a plot bunny for a more involved (dialogue! I crave dialogue!) fic.  
  
Comments, criticisms, and freshly laundered socks may be directed to me, smallfox@toast.com.  
  
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Will approached the bench in a sort of silent reverie, every molecule in his body aching to run to it and sit down, viewing the same landscape she was, breathing the same air, sharing the same space. He restrained himself, slowing his pace so that he reached the bench precisely and noon. He sat down, and Kirjava sprang up beside him, resting her paws on his leg and licking the scar tissue that grew over his knuckles. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, savoring the the smell of flowers and moss and dead and decaying leaves. For a half an hour, the sun marched dutifully across the sky and Will sat silent.  
  
At precisely 12:30, the world came into alignment and he began his now-yearly ritual of writing to his beloved. he began aloud, savoring even the sound of her voice spoken aloud. he repeated, turning it over and over again in his mind, and watching the notes float over the garden, strange music from a strange world. He spoke it again softly to himself, tracing the sounds with his pen this time, outlining the fineness of it, omitting all salutations, beginning with a presumptuous incarnation of her name, the sole right of intimates. it's been five years... Five times I've sat on this bench on this day, at this time, and every time I've felt your presence, only so far away as the distance between two atoms. This same robin that scratches around the tree here has a doppelganger in your world that hunts down the same worm with the same dogged determination. I wonder if you are gazing at it now, as I am. I wonder what's happened to you in all these years, I wonder how much more beautiful you've become, but then I stop myself and realize you could never be more beautiful than you were the day we shared the fruit and declared our love for one another. You were so radiant then that it shamed me to remember ever being entranced by your mother or any other witch or angel. You are all of those, Lyra -- demon, witch, angel, lover -- and with that one action you ensured that you would be the only woman I would ever think on; you ensured that you would torment and inspire me, the only light in my heart and the only scar on my soul.  
  
When we parted and you stood in the City of Magpies, I thought how fitting it was that magpies were stealing my only treasure, the only thing in my life that shone and sparkled...  
  
Here Kirjava blinked up at him, and stretched herself out to nuzzle his chin. She pressed the top of her head against him and purred, and he obliged by tilting his head back and reaching up to scratch the side of her face.   
  
I've tried to recapture you -- I paint now. I never did before I met you. Every subject is the same, however, as I try to reconstruct your face, or the curve of your young waist, or the shape of your neck crooked around an ermine Pantalaimon. I know it's all in vain, but to rearrange spots of paint into your semblance comforts me. I paint our daemons, as well, and remember the electricity of your hand on Kirjava's back, the raw sensuality and terror of it. Nothing in this world can ever compare to that, the shock of closeness that it produced and the surge of love that followed. I have kept that memory, that feeling, so close to my heart that I almost feel the current that flowed between us every time I touch the same soft spot on Kirjava.  
  
Kirjava meowed mournfully -- she could feel it as well, and Will noticed the fine hairs between her shoulder blades arch. She had a spot there, lighter than the rest of her fur, an indelible trace of Lyra's touch.   
  
Will tore himself away from the memory long enough to continue. I'm studying philosophy at the university now. Philosophy and physics. I have a course on death -- imagine that, Lyra, an entire course on death. It's surreal and I never speak up in lecture, but secretly I'm glad I know how we will all end up. I am glad that the world of the dead opens onto the word of the mulefa. I'm glad to knows that when we die, you and I, every atom of our beings will race throughout the cosmos to reunite, you and I and Pantalaimon and my Kirjava, all pressed together, condensed within a star, exploding outwards for all eternity. Before I dissipate, though, I'll see that world where I first felt your touch in a new way, and saw that new light in your eyes. The world where I discovered *love*, love as a vibration in every atom of my being, tugging them ever closer toward you; I can think of no better place to end my life than there, feeling that same tug on my being as every piece of me soars outward with the same vibration, alive and searching for you.  
  
  
  
The letter, with no closing, was folded, rolled, tucked between the slats of the bench. The author and his daemon, emotionally sated, rose and padded silently toward the great iron gate, the serpent scrollwork glowing in a veil of mid afternoon light.


End file.
